At least 10 rebel returnees are among farmers who have received land titles in Leyte from the Department of Agrarian Reform.
Some 31 agricultural tenants in the hacienda here have received their early Christmas gifts individual certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs) covering 39.9 hectares of farm lot in Barangat Enage.
Municipal agrarian reform program officer Maximo Castañeda Jr. spearheaded the distribution of CLOAs, citing 10 of the 31 agrarian reform beneficiaries were former rebels.
The effort is part of DAR’s contribution to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) under Executive Order No. 70 of 2018.
“Providing lands to the landless gives these former rebels the support they need as they start over a new life,” he said.
The awarded lots are part of the 58-hectare hacienda owned by Caridad Enage covered under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
Castañeda said under EO No. 4 of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., land amortization payments are suspended for one year, and that a priority bill of the Marcos administration would allow the farmer-beneficiaries to receive their lands for free and that they would no longer need to pay amortizations and interest payments.
The Enage Agrarian Reform Farmer Beneficiaries Association’s center stands temporarily in a private lot which could be evicted anytime.